Things That Matter

24 Painting students from the Royal College of Art are holding an exhibition in the AMP gallery in Peckham, London in February 2024.

The exhibition consists of small intimate works by MA Paintings students from the Royal College of Art. The works explore the theme of the power play in small works of art. There is a tenderness in the handling of paint, a personal revelation in the subject matter. In some cases, the surface rejects the viewer, pushing them away or holding them off; the subject remains ambiguous and distant however near you get, or perhaps confrontational content or mark-making deny the desire for closeness. The other thing that ties these works together than sizes is the artists relationship to the paintings.

From the traditional, medium specific definition of painting, to more expanded understandings of what it can mean, every artist has engaged in the genre and discipline in their own ways. A discipline which wrangles surface, depth and edge, illusion, abstraction, and materiality.